Charles Darwin famously included only one illustration in his book "On the Origin of Species" published in 1859. It was a diagram of how species originate through time in a manner that, on paper, resembles a family tree. ...

A cellular control mechanism prevents the production of defective proteins in our cells. A team of researchers from Bern has now obtained valuable insights into this vital mechanism that could lead to new therapeutic approaches ...

Parentage-based tagging (PBT) is an emerging genetic-based fish tagging method that involves genotyping hatchery broodstock. PBT is a passive non-invasive approach to stock identification because the parents, not the offspring, ...

Gravity affects the ecology and evolution of every living organism. In plants, the general response to gravity is well known: their roots respond positively, growing down, into the soil, and their stems respond negatively, ...

During the final stage of cell division, a short-lived contractile ring constricts the cellular membrane and eventually separates the dividing cell in two. Although this "molecular muscle's" composition, mainly actin and ...

(Phys.org) -- A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist has shown researchers and plant breeders a better way to handle the massive amounts of data being generated by plant molecular studies, using an approach that ...

In the classical model of gene expression, the genetic script encoded in our genomes is expressed in each cell in the form of RNA molecules, each consisting of a linear string of chemical "bases". It may be time to revise ...

A new study has shed light on the process by which fruit flies develop with their body proportions remaining constant. The study, conducted by the research group of Professor Markus Affolter at the Biozentrum of the University ...

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in unraveling, for the first time, the complete chain of biochemical reactions that controls the synthesis of auxin, the hormone that regulates nearly all ...